Poem for Monday and Scott's Run

As You Never Bothered to Return My Call
By August Kleinzahler

What I had wanted was to be chaste,
sober and uncomfortable
for a sprawling episode on a beach somewhere
dirty, perennially out of fashion;
let the smell of cocoa butter drive deep memory wild
as the sun went down, a parti-colored blur,
examined through a bottle of pop
some kid gave up on only half-way through
and left to go warm in the sand.

The train ride would be long and hot,
and you, you've had it with men.
Me ...
        I'm sickened by the pronoun.
Tenderness seems as far away as Sioux City
and besides, it would have cost too much.
But you should have called,

if only since a preposterous little episode like this
is just the stuff to scare off extra friends,
like soaking their laps with corrosive fizz.
And us ...
              What an impertinence, us.
We could have played gin rummy and taken a stroll
into town or along the boardwalk, maybe,
                                      with dear old Godzilla,
the first one, the best one, the 1954 one,
reprising his role this one last time, raising himself up
over the horizon at dusk,
and hurrying us to a place we never would have
dreamt of
              going.

--------

We ended Thanksgiving weekend with a nice, relaxing day with our kids that started with everyone sleeping late, so we did not find Adam snow boots while Black Friday sales were still in effect, but he can probably make it till winter break unless we get an early snowpocalypse, which given the past few years is possible. Eventually everyone got up and we had lunch, then went to Scott's Run Nature Preserve right across the bridge to Virginia, where we hiked along the creek to the Potomac River, which is wide and flat there but kind of low, good for skipping stones and watching canoeists. Practically everyone we saw had a dog. We were a bit late in the season for our annual photo, so there were not many leaves left on the trees:


Here are Paul, Daniel, and Adam at Scott's Run.


Here is the 2013 version of the photo...


...and the 2012 version....


...and the 2011 version...


...and the 2010 version...


...and the 2009 version...


...and the 2008 version...


...and the 2007 version...


...and the 2006 version...


...and the 2005 version...


...and the 2004 version...


...and the 2003 version, in which I forgot to fix the settings so I got a blurry photo.

Because we were out enjoying the beautiful weather, we did not watch any of the Ravens game, which they blew at the end (kind of the way the Terps blew their game on Saturday, while Washington can't seem to win with or without RGIII). We did take Daniel food shopping, and we took both sons to Noodles & Company for an early dinner (I had the Indonesian peanut noodles with tofu, which was yummy), then to Cold Stone Creamery (which now has peppermint ice cream for the season, which is also yummy!). We watched what I thought was the mid-season finale of Once Upon a Time but apparently there's a new episode next week, plus we watched another couple of episodes of Madam Secretary, with which we'll catch up eventually!